four

Punky's birthday turned out to be a very busy, fun day. That morning, Punky had preschool and was so excited to be the Special Helper. The Special Helper is in charge of leading circle time, talking through the calendar and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. She also got to bring the snack and a special treat to pass out after class. Daddy was up all night with food poisoning and felt good enough to surprise Punky by picking her up after preschool.

With my new schedule at work, I had the entire day off. We invited Punky's three BFFs (and baby sister!) over for a small birthday party. This year Punky had requested a Hello Kitty birthday party. The girls (and Buddy) painted Hello Kitty masks, played Pin the bow on Hello Kitty and played another game where the kids stood on a chair and dropped pens into a vase.

In the two hour time window, there was also time for dress-up, cupcakes and present opening. Although there was a pretty major tantrum from Punky at one point, it was a pretty fun afternoon!



After the party, we headed to Broadway Pizza for Punky's annual birthday dinner. The kids were so exhausted after a big day that they were in bed 45 minutes early.

On Saturday, our families came to celebrate Punky's birthday. Although we intended it to be a low-key party, it always ends up being a crazy, hectic celebration when you have five kids in our small house.



Auntie Shannon recently started dabbling in cake decorating and surprised Punky with an awesome Hello Kitty cake! It turned out so cute!





It was a fun afternoon catching up with family and friends. Punky got a lot of great gifts (bedding for a big girl bed, dress up clothes, a CD player, doll clothes, rain boots and crafts).



After everyone went home, we went to Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Max's hotel room to swim. I wish I could've taken photos or videos, but I am not bringing a $$$ camera to a pool, no way. Punky and Buddy were crazy and fearless. They both jumped in and out of the pool approximately 100 times each. We ended night with pizza, bedtime for the little kids and board games and cards for the big kids.

This morning we went to church, out for pancakes and by Buddy's request, Cabela's. Punky and I had fun this afternoon playing princesses and trying out her new makeup kit. Very futuristic, no?



It was a very fun weekend and hopefully a birthday Punky will never forget!

A lot excited

For the past week, Punky has been counting down the days until her 4th birthday. As soon as I opened her bedroom door yesterday, she proclaimed "One more day!". Later that day, I joked to her, "Punky, I think you are a little bit excited for your birthday." She replied, "No, Mom, I am A LOT excited!"



Daddy and I are in complete disbelief that our little baby girl is now 4 years old.

At four years old, you are a friendly, enthusiastic little girl. You are always happy to meet new people and make new friends.

You love to play pretend, play games and do puzzles, watch TV, and play computer games.

You are becoming a picky eater. I am trying not to worry about it too much because I was a picky eater myself and outgrew it (for the most part). I have to cut the crust off the bread now. Depending on the day, you may or may not like cheese. You never like vegetables, except green beans and "crunchy" carrots.

You are very smart and amaze us every day. At four years old, you can read... a lot of words. We seriously didn't do anything to teach you, except I guess give you good genes. A few days ago, I was reading on the couch while you were playing. You snuggled up next to me and read "baby", "pick", "day care" out of my book. You have also surprised us with a bunch of other words like "pizza", "west" and "Now available on DVD". Ha!

You are sensitive. You do not like it when we tell you "No". I am a big push-over and like to see you happy, so I give in a lot. I need to stop doing that because your preschool teachers have commented to us that you pout or whine in class if something doesn't go your way. We are going to work on that!

Thank you, Punky, for being the sweet little girl that you are. You will always be our little baby, the one who made our twosome a family. It has been such a joy to watch you grow and we are so excited to see what is in store for the future! But, please, slow down!

Pretend

I've been a bad blogger this year.  We've been laying low and haven't done anything "blog worthy" in the past few weeks.  I don't know if it is the cold weather or our way of trying to relax after the busy holiday season.   Prior today, I had only taken three photos.  Oops!

The past few months we have really seen an explosion in Buddy's verbal skills.  With this new found skill, Punky and Buddy have begun to play together more and more.  There is hardly a moment that goes by when the kids are not playing pretend and creating some sort of cute scenario. 

Punky loves to be a princess or queen and leaves Buddy to be the "handsome prince", the dragon, or the "wicky witch".  This morning Punky put on her Cinderella dress and I helped Buddy into his knight costume.  He quickly slayed the dragon (me) and asked to be a princess.  Oh boy! 



Often times, Buddy will assign each family member an animal that we have to pretend to be.  For example, Buddy is a horse, Punky is a pig, Daddy is a cow and Mommy is a chicken.  It is fine to play these games for a few minutes, but it gets old fast.  This week, we were watching "King Lion" and I suggested to the kids that we set up some of Buddy's animals and played "King Lion".  It was a hit!  They had a lot of fun sorting through Buddy's basket of animals trying to find all of the African animals.  And then they reenacted some of the scenes with baby Simba, Mufasa and "Scarf". 



I am so happy that Punky and Buddy play so well together.  I know it probably won't last forever, but I can hope for it, right?  I am lucky that my kiddos are best friends.  Now I just need to convince them that they will not be able to marry each other when they grow up... 

Christmas 4

We traveled to SD the weekend after Christmas to celebrate with my family.  We got to Grandma and Grandpa's house in the early afternoon.  Everyone was ready to go soon after we walked into the door and 15 minutes later we were sitting around the Christmas tree opening presents!

Once again, Punky and Buddy got a lot of great gifts.  Punky's big gift from Grandma and Grandpa was an American Girl doll with a hearing aid.  She was so excited to have a doll that looks just like her!



Buddy got a bunch of great toys, books, and clothes.  Grandma Debbie found a Knight costume for Buddy after she heard that Buddy likes to dress up right along with Punky and her girlfriends.  He always calls himself a "prince" but wears a princess dress and twirls around!  Now he can be a real "handsome prince"!



Punky and Buddy's cousin, Leah, got a unicycle for Christmas and was excited to show us her skills. I even tried it out... I couldn't even let go of the wall...



Auntie Shannon surprised everyone with gifts that she had crocheted.  I got a beautiful sweater, Grandma got some slippers, and everyone else a hat!



That night, we ate pizza, swam in the "hot pool" and put the kids to bed.  The adults stayed up late and played cards.

The next day was a great day just hanging out and spending time with each other.  It was the kind of day I wish we could do more often.  Grandpa took us on a hike through the "woods".  In reality, we took the long way to get the mail.  We watched Leah on the swing and went sledding down a teeny hill.  Buddy was on the lookout for a black bear. 

Uncle Nate's blog debut

Later on, we watched a movie and did some coloring.



Around 5 o'clock that night, Buddy wandered around searching for me, calling out "Mama, I need you.  Mama, I need you."  I picked him up and he buried his head into my shoulder.  We rocked for a little bit and soon Buddy was sound asleep.  I made Derek take a photo of us because I know this was probably the last time my little guy would fall asleep in my arms like that.  I can still hear his little voice saying "mama" and feel him snuggling in tight.  Oh, how I wish he'd stay little forever.



It typically takes Buddy a good 20 minutes to wake up from a nap, so we decided to lay him down while we ate the prime rib and twice-baked potato dinner that Grandma had made.  After we were done with our delicious meal, I woke Buddy up so he could eat.  He was not having it.  We ended up putting on his pjs and putting him down for the night.  He woke up around 11pm.  We were all playing cards (again! so much fun!) so Buddy sat with me and had some crackers and milk.  He went back to sleep when we did around midnight and slept until 7 the next morning.  Poor guy must've been tired!

It was a great weekend!  How I wish we lived closer so we could get together like this more often!